Old Video Passed Off as Visuals of Earth as Recorded From Chandrayaan-3

We found that the video dates back to October 2022, months before Chandrayaan-3 was launched.

Fact-Check | The video is old and does not show the visuals of Chandrayaan-3. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video which shows an aerial view of the earth from space is going viral on social media platforms with a claim that the visuals were captured by Chandrayaan-3.

The claim comes after Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) announced that Chandrayaan-3 will land on the Moon's surface on 23 August at around 6:00 PM.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

At the time of writing this report, the video had recorded more than 1,90,00 views on X (formerly Twitter). You can view archives of similar posts here, here, here, and here.

What is the truth?: The video dates back to October 2022, and was captured by an astronaut named Samantha Cristoforetti during their second mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It is unrelated to Chandrayaan-3.

How did we find out?: We noticed that towards the end of the video, one could see that it was credited to the University of Iowa and Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit. The video mentioned one 'Som ET'.

The viral video had a credit plate, which could be seen towards the end.

(Source: Viral video/Screenshot)

• We searched for 'Som ET' on Google and came across a YouTube channel with the same name.

• On going through the channel, we found the same video uploaded on 13 April. The video was titled, "Som ET - 83 - Earth - ISS 067-E-357091-357756 #shorts."

• Further, we divided the video into several keyframes using a Google Chrome extension InVID and performed a reverse image search.

• A Google Lens search led us to the same video uploaded on the official website of The European Space Agency.

• The video was titled "Moonlight Timelapse" and uploaded on 13 October 2022.

• Its description mentioned, "Timelapse video made during ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti's second mission to the International Space Station, 'Minerva'."

• The Quint found the same video uploaded on Cristoforetti's X account.

Visuals shared by ISRO: Recently, a video was shared from ISRO's official X account which showed a view from the Lander Imager (LI) Camera-1 which was recorded on 17 August.

Conclusion: An old video which shows an aerial view of the earth from space is being shared on the internet with a false claim that it shows the visuals captured by Chandrayaan-3.

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